An Ashford pensioner is making up for lost time with the big family he never knew he had.

For most of his life, 79-year-old Peter Fox thought he was an only child.

So when he received a call out of the blue telling him he had five half-sisters and two half-brothers, he thought it was a prank and hung up.

But it was true.

Yesterday he waved goodbye to his long-lost half-sister Patricia Bell (nee Andrews), as she returned home to Canada after visiting him in Ashford.

Mr Fox was born in Ashford and so were his seven siblings. He was the child of an affair and grew up believing his grandparents were his parents as his mother was still a teenager when she had him.

So, he never knew his father Cecil Andrews – always known as Mickey – who continued to live with his wife and seven other children.

June, Beryl, Ron, Jacqui, Pauline, Patricia and Michael all spent their early years in Ashford but emigrated to Canada after the war.

full story see this week's Kentish Express.